HP Touchpad

Right about the time that HP ran its now legendary TouchPad fire sale, a few lucky customers received TouchPads inexplicably running Android. Apparently the PC manufacturer had been testing Gingerbread builds on its tablet (which runs Palm's WebOS natively). As a show of solidarity to the development community, HP has now released the source code for its own internal version of the Android kernel to the CyanogenMod team. CyanogenMod maintains the most popular TouchPad Android port, CyanogenMod 7 Gingerbread, as well as the new CM9 Ice Cream Sandwich. You can read all the juicy details over at RootzWiki.

Everyone's favorite firesale tablet is still going strong, at least as far as developers and modders are concerned. The HP TouchPad got a port of CyanogenMod 9 ice cream sandwich just a few weeks ago, and the progress made thus far is impressive to say the least. While still in Alpha, the ROM build has graduated to Alpha 0.6, with a number of additions to the stability and user interface of Android. Adventurous flashers can download the build from RootzWiki now, and install it normally through Clockwork Mod Recovery.

As anyone who's actually used it will tell you, the death of Palm/HP's WebOS really is a shame. The little operating system that couldn't had a lot of great ideas (more than a few of which made their way into Ice Cream Sandwich) but low sales and almost nonexistent app support doomed the platform. That isn't to say there were no good apps, and one of the best is coming to Android in the future: the multi-faceted, multi-talented Glimpse. The HP TouchPad app does more multitasking in a single window than certain iDevices can manage all day.

The CyanogenMod team showed off a near-complete version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the HP TouchPad earlier this week, and now you can try it out on your own hardware. CyanogenMod 9 Alpha 0 is ready to download and install via RootzWiki (currently experiencing uptime issues), though at this point it's far from finished. While the basics are in place, including Android 4.0's much-improved tablet interface, a host of early bugs will discourage all but the most dedicated of modders.

Everybody' favorate cheap, hackable tablet still has considerable modder momentum behind it, and the CyanogenMod team is a big part of that. Now they've released a video of CyanogenMod 9 (Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich) running on HP's abandoned TouchPad hardware. The port isn't complete yet, with a few hardware issues keeping it out of the hands of eager ROM flashers, but the developers say they'll be releasing the ICS version along with CyanogenMod 9's general debut soon.

Though it's almost impossible to find an HP TouchPad at this point (at a reasonable price, anyway) the Android mod community is still rolling full steam ahead on the abandoned platform. Though the MIUI version of Android isn't as far along as CyanogenMod 7 for the TouchPad, it's reached the beta stage first, aftera short alpha introductory period. You can download MIUI for the TouchPad over at RootzWiki.

Most of the excitement in the custom ROM world is circling around Ice Cream Sandwich at the moment, but we haven't forgotten about the best tablet deal of the year. In the latest incremental update to the HP TouchPad version of popular custom ROM CyanogenMod 7.2, the team has focused on UI and gaming improvements, allowing the TouchPad to be at least as capable at 3D gaming as a modern mid-range Android smartphone. Alpha version 3.5 is available for download at RootzWiki now.

This isn't technically an Android story, but we know there's lots of Palm Pre and HP Touchpad users out there in the reading audience. After months of indecision over the future of WebOS, HP has decided to release open source code for the operating system, allowing anyone from hobbyists to manufacturers to create versions of WebOS for different devices. There won't be any more hardware from HP featuring WebOS, at least not in the immediate future.

Who's ready for another crazy round of HP tablets selling like crazy for the low low price of just $99? New details have now confirmed HP will be having a huge sale on refurbished TouchPads starting at $99 for the 16GB model and going up from there. Sunday December 11th on the HP Ebay Store you'll get a chance to snag an awesomely cheap tablet -- then install CM7 on that bad boy.